A visit to my alma mater in Minnesota this summer confirmed my belief that while time has been moving forward and the world has continued to advance and change with the times, RPI remains frozen in the past. Everywhere on that small midwestern campus there were signs of greening: from the state-of-the-art biodegradable starch-based plasticware in the dining halls, to the ubiquitous recycling bins in the residence halls, to the giant megawatt wind turbine on the hill. Returning to RPI, one of the “leading technological universities in the world,” I saw a whole reception’s worth of glass bottles and aluminum cans dumped into a trash bin. The sole recycling bin in the building was labeled for paper, and no one at that reception felt like carting the bottles and cans over to the recycling bins in the next building. “I guess I’m not very green,” one host said. You would have to be very green indeed, given the lengths you have to go to recycle on this campus. On top of that, we have just one wind turbine and no green buildings. I am left with the impression, at least with regard to socially responsible technology, that RPI is not a leading technological institute at all, but is, at best, being dragged unwillingly by the current.
Chris Bystroff
Associate Professor of Biology and Computer Science
